


Nothing Makes Me Tremble More Than You

by pietromavximoff



Category: Captain America, Marvel, Stucky - Fandom
Genre: IM NOT COPING AJHSFJasFDS, M/M, honestly punch me in the face there's five days till civil war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 22:03:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6628387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pietromavximoff/pseuds/pietromavximoff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place right after Bucky gets free of that thing his arm is trapped in, and he and Steve both remember when they knew their feelings were becoming serious, before reuniting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Makes Me Tremble More Than You

Bucky’s hands clenched reflexively as Steve drew closer. He saw now, without the distraction of the pain in his arm, that Steve’s hands were trembling slightly. Bucky’s metal arm was still twitching slightly from what had trapped him in it, but he had long forgotten. Steve’s eyes were exactly the same as he had remembered, big and blue and bright, despite all the things that had tried to dim them, and when he looked at Bucky, Bucky felt his heart race and a reckless desire fell over him that stunned him for a few seconds before he could place the memory of where he had felt that last. A lifetime ago, when they were younger and living on their own in a tiny Brooklyn apartment, trying to make it work and not even daring to imagine a life without each other. He had had the same feeling of dangerous longing back then, but this time he knew what it meant. He’d have done anything for Steve back then, and he’d do anything for Steve now. He’d die for Steve; he’d kill for Steve. He’d live for Steve.

Steve’s hands couldn’t seem to keep from shaking as he moved in closer. Bucky stood up a little straighter, untightened his fists as much as he could without letting them drop completely, because if they did, he’d be shaking worse than Steve. He remembered the first time Steve had made him shake like this. He was seventeen and Steve was sixteen, and he knew that he loved Steve and Steve loved him but he didn’t fully understand what kind of love it was. They were in a dark cinema, waiting for a movie to start and Steve said something that Bucky had laughed at, and they turned to grin at each other, and Bucky could see the stars in Steve’s eyes, and it wasn’t so dark in there anymore. And he had rested his arm on the armrest they shared and Steve had put his arm casually over the top and Bucky had to fight for two hours not to shift his arm so Steve wouldn’t either. He remembered trying to keep his hands steady, trying to breathe slowly, because surely Steve could hear his heart beating so loudly. Bucky could remember every shadow that cast on Steve’s face, every sudden movement that made his heart sink thinking their hands would separate, every second of trying desperately to not concentrate on his skin burning where Steve touched it, but ask him what the movie was about and he couldn’t say. 

It was different for Steve. The years after he had woke without Bucky, he had been trying so desperately to live in the past, he’d have done anything to make his memories real again. To have home again. And then Bucky had come along, and memories of growing up with Bucky hadn’t seemed so important, because a life with him had become a reality. Maybe that’s why he fought so hard for him. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t let go. He had been homesick for the longest time, not realizing that home wasn’t a place or a time. It was a person – it was Bucky. And he had only been able to realize that the moment he saw The Winter Soldier without a mask and he had felt the breath knocked out of his chest and his ribs seemed to crack with the weight of his heart pounding against them and all he could manage to say was one word, his home, the one person he’d do anything for. ‘Bucky?’   
The first time he had felt his name fall off his lips like that was a memory that had lived in his heart and made a home there, occasionally bruising the inside of his chest when he remembered it. He was seventeen, and Bucky had insisted staying with him the night that he had come back from his mother’s funeral, and that had turned into the week, and now it had been two months without either of them saying a word about it. It had become a normal thing; Bucky would say hi to the old lady who lived across the hall when got up in the morning to get the paper and she’d glace at Steve walking around the kitchen behind him and throw them a look that they’d both laugh at. Steve was usually the first home so he’d cook dinner and Bucky would come back with bags of food because “are you kidding me Rogers, I could smell you burning it all the way from fifth avenue” and at night, they’d both curl up in Steve’s tiny bed, knowing that their backs would hurt in the morning and that there was another room with a perfectly good, if not better bed, across the kitchen. A few months like this had seemed to fly, and Steve was trying not to think too much about the future, but he couldn’t help picturing them there, together, for the rest of their lives, and for the first time, Steve’s future finally felt enough. One night, when they were both half asleep and their limbs tangled in a way that made comfort not even matter anymore, because Steve couldn’t tell where he began and Bucky ended, he turned to him, watching the moonlight slowly spill through the window, illuminating Bucky’s silhouette, and it had fallen out of his mouth before he could catch it.  
‘Bucky?’ His soft voice seemed loud against the screaming silence that followed. Bucky’s eyes fluttered open, like Steve knew they would, and he turned to Steve, a grin playing on his face.  
‘Woke me up.’  
‘You weren’t sleeping.’ Silence. Bucky’s smile still hadn’t faded, and Steve could feel one playing on his lips, but he couldn’t let it, because thinking of the future had kept him up all night and he needed to know that he wasn’t the only one thinking of it.  
‘What are we doing?’  
And then Bucky’s eyes had grown a little more serious and his smile a little smaller and he answered after a few seconds. ‘I don’t know.’  
Steve thought that the only way stupid words would stop falling from his mouth was if his heart stopped. ‘I . . . this isn’t for now, right? I mean – this – this is us. This is always.’  
Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together and his lip twitched upwards in a smile that told Steve he wanted to say so much more, to ask that this was, to wonder why it had taken them both so long to talk about it, to wonder why they weren’t even really talking about it now, but all he said was, ‘you’re not getting rid of me that easy,’ and Steve only grinned, without a smart retort because he had stared at Bucky’s lips too long now to trust himself with words that were dangerous like the ones he wanted to say. So he settled with that smile, and when he closed his eyes, tried not to think about how those lips would feel under his.

Back then they seemed worlds apart compared to now. And even though their hands weren’t resting against one another’s and their bodies weren’t tangled together, they were finally at the same place, their hearts finally beating together, both saying what their mouths hadn’t yet. Steve had finally reached Bucky, and for a terrifying second, he thought that that was as close as he would get, because Bucky still hadn’t moved, and what was terrifying for Steve was that that would have been enough for him. But then Bucky shifted closer and reached his hand to grab one of Steve’s. Their hands touched, and Steve thought the world could be burning and he wouldn’t care. Instantly, their fingers locked and then they were hugging, burying heads into necks and holding each other so tightly that each touch alone could pull together the other’s broken pieces. They fit against each other like that’s how they were made, and all this time they had been halves trying to find the rest of themselves. Maybe this was what healing was. Maybe, in between words long overdue and shaking hands holding one another, they were home. And maybe, when they both found their way to Steve’s apartment that night, they would get to start over, from the very beginning, and live the life they were supposed to.


End file.
